Legal Exploitation of Illegal Aliens

Two years ago, Roberto Ramirez Celiz, a gardener who lives in San Juan Capistrano, heard a Spanish-language radio ad by a man named Oscar Salinas, who said he could arrange legal papers for undocumented workers.

Ramirez Celiz, who speaks no English and had been living here illegally since before 1982, hoped that Salinas could guide him through the process of legalization, something that is often confusing and intimidating to many immigrants.

So he went to see the Garden Grove company that Salinas advertised and signed a contract to pay $1,900 for the firm’s help.

But as the months went by, Ramirez Celiz said, the company did not appear to be making progress. His phone calls to the company and his trips in person yielded no satisfactory explanation.

Finally, after having paid the company $1,500 in several installments, Ramirez Celiz gave up and decided to go to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and make his own arrangements.

In March, 1989, prosecutors with the Orange County district attorney’s office charged Oscar Salinas with 12 counts of tax evasion and said they were also conducting a fraud investigation in connection with his legalization services.

Salinas’ trial on the tax evasion charges is scheduled for July 12.

This March, however, with Ramirez Celiz in the process of becoming a legal resident, a Municipal Court ordered him to pay more than $700 to the Garden Grove company. He is now trying to fight the order in court.

Ramirez Celiz’s story is one that officials at the Orange County Coalition for Immigrant Rights say they have heard countless times in the last few years.

Robin Blackwell, coordinator of the coalition, said that hardly a week goes by that her group doesn’t hear from someone claiming to have been defrauded by Salinas.

“It really disturbs me because perhaps he’s continuing to perpetuate his bad advice and continues to profit from it,” Blackwell said.

For several years, prosecutors said, Salinas operated one of the region’s largest immigrant assistance companies, with offices in Orange, Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura counties.

Investigators have reviewed a number of complaints from immigrants who allege that his companies--which operated under different names--charged thousands of dollars for work that was sloppy and incomplete.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gerald Johnston said, however, that it has been difficult to substantiate the allegations of immigration fraud.

“We wanted to investigate (Salinas) all along on his activities as an immigration consultant, but we were never able to put together a case,” Johnston said. “It’s very frustrating. The biggest problem is his victims. Some of them are not well-educated; they were frequently illiterate and totally intimidated by the system. We were unable to substantiate the case.

“All we had were verbal statements. It would be these people’s words against Oscar Salinas and his employees. (The employees) were obviously educated and in a position, in my opinion, to establish their stories fairly credibly. And that left us in an awkward spot. Or the victims would go back to Mexico. We were not trusted.”

Blackwell said most of the complaints she has heard allege that immigrants were being strung along by a paper process that appeared legitimate. For example, Araceli Scheel, a Guatemalan immigrant, said last year that she signed a contract with the Southern California Immigration Center, a firm owned by Salinas, agreeing to pay $3,500 for help in getting her working papers.

But like Ramirez Celiz, Scheel finally sought a second opinion from an immigrant rights group after the company failed to deliver her work papers while continuing to bill her for the balance of her payments.

Johnston said that publicity about the district attorney’s investigation of Salinas last year caused a “real reaction in the community and that essentially his operations couldn’t continue.”

“The unfortunate thing is that this didn’t address what we thought was the significant problem--that these people were being ripped off,” Johnston said. “He has these contracts that are valid on their face. That’s why he’s winning in court. And there’s not much my office can do on that.”

Salinas could not be reached for comment, but his lawyer, Lewis Grieser, said his client is no longer in the immigration business. Salinas has repeatedly denied that he is guilty of any immigration fraud.

Blackwell said her group and other immigrant rights groups throughout the state have not closed the book on Salinas.

“We are actively looking for people who feel like they have been defrauded,” she said.